Teenage Kissers at Half Gallery

About Ed Templeton

The American painter, drawing artist and photographer Ed Templeton (b. 1972) tells the story of his life, a story that also makes comments on the society in which he lives. Templeton presents his images free from hierarchy, focusing on the world of punk and skateboarding, friends, family, himself and his wife… From intimately to far outside, he effortlessly couples autobiographical fragments with a universal imagery. The result is an exhibition which presents itself as ‘a story’, fed and corroborated by photographs, paintings and sketches that roam through the spaces, free from hierarchy.

He has exhibited his artwork worldwide, including the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Museum Het Domein, Netherlands, and Kiasma Museum, Helsinki, as well as being part of the seminal Beautiful Losers exhibition and feature film. In 2008 a book of Templeton's photographs, Deformer, was published in Italy and recently won first prize at the International Festival of Photography in Rome. In April of 2010 he will be having a mid-career survey exhibition of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Gent, Belgium. Templeton is represented in the United States by Roberts & Tilton Gallery, Culver City, California.

About the Book

...Today in the Flickr generation, photographs of young kids in wild and rebellious situations come a dime a dozen. The internet is chocked full of these images, usually shot and shared between small groups of friends and existing on a myriad of random Tumblr and Facebook pages. Never before in history have we lived in a society where the personal documentation of peoples’ private lives has been so public. However, when Ed Templeton began shooting these photos of young people kissing this was not the case at all. The worldwide web was only in its infancy and the word “blog” had not yet even been invented. Photography of this nature was restricted to few practitioners, and existed in a rarified world young fans and art aficionados. It should be noted that while in today’s climate these images may feel standard, at the time they were being created Templeton was surely an innovator. His images spread through youth culture like wildfire, and in many ways one could blame the young photo-blog explosion partly on the fact that he took these photographs when he did.

For that reason alone, Teenage Kissers should be viewed as a historical volume. As we look at these photographs of young people exchanging awkward kisses we are reminded again of that wonderful uncomfortability that comes with the discovery of young sexuality. Not only do we all remember the feeling of that first clumsy teenage kiss, as mature viewers we can now look at the photos from afar and understand exactly where it’s all going. Like its predecessor, Teenage Kissers is a perfect documentation of this feeling. The photographs are, in many ways, beyond innocence. They brim with humanity in its most raw form and remind us that although some of us have now grown up, we’re still never so far from that first kiss. The basics of our sexual lives are reflected back to us in these images…and no matter how many times we see it, it cannot be denied that there’s a little “Teenage Kisser” in every one of us.